So is T15 tuned harder than standard normal mode tiers? What's up with progression, Jin'rokh's only been killed by the same number of guilds that had killed empress and sha at the end of last tier.

Personally my guild has reached 10/12, incredibly this means we're approaching top 1000, i'm pretty sure we're a massive bunch of noobs so i'm not sure how we've managed to achieve this ranking or why so few guilds are clearing normal mode?

Some fights do still feel a bit overtuned (on 10m at least) and generally other than Durumu the 2nd half of the instance feels easier than the 1st which probably doesn't help.

I dunno, we killed Jin'rokh 10N in under ten pulls with a group of alts; the average item level of the group wasn't much higher than 480-485 and that's only because it was propped up by two item level 495-500 dps that couldn't make the main raid (admittedly, without them we wouldn't have killed the boss, but then a couple of the dps weren't exactly doing great dps (60-70k)). The healers were geared around 475, the tanks were around the 480 mark IIRC.

I am not *that* surprised at those numbers. T14 was pretty brutal, especially compared to T12/T13, and T15 really followed that trend.I'm betting half of it is because people want to "play it safe" and still gather some loot with the easy-to-gather Elder Charms before heading to ToT.Also, this tier's catchup mechanic is less forgiving than the last ones (hello, T13 dungeons!), so we'll most probably have T15 being a "continuation" of T14, instead of a "new start".

When that day comes, seek all the light and wonder of this world, and fight.

I think it's more that a couple of fights are tighter, rather than the whole tier being harder. On 10 man, at least, Horridon was difficult for a lot of guilds on launch, which is why it got nerfed (we wiped for a couple of hours pre-nerf, then 1-shot it the week after); and we found Tortos to be a real pain (it's a simple fight but unforgiving if someone aggros the bats by mistake).

By contrast Jin'rokh and Council were easy enough (Jin'rokh too easy), and Megaera feels easy too (though we've only had a couple of pulls and not reached the 6th and 7th head yet).

culhag wrote:I think I remember Blizz saying that thanks to LFR, they can afford to make normal mode harder than it was in Cata.

I'm not sure what this achieves though, who's the target audience for even more difficult normal modes? On my server we have 72 raiding guilds, yet only 17 of those cleared normal last tier. This tier barely anyone has even made it past council yet. When we killed Meg in week 1 we joked that literally no other guilds on our server would likely kill it.

There's all these guilds sitting around that now basically only run LFR, and i guess they'll now run T14 some more. It seems a bizarre direction to go in.

Winkle wrote:So is T15 tuned harder than standard normal mode tiers? What's up with progression, Jin'rokh's only been killed by the same number of guilds that had killed empress and sha at the end of last tier.

Personally my guild has reached 10/12, incredibly this means we're approaching top 1000, i'm pretty sure we're a massive bunch of noobs so i'm not sure how we've managed to achieve this ranking or why so few guilds are clearing normal mode?

Some fights do still feel a bit overtuned (on 10m at least) and generally other than Durumu the 2nd half of the instance feels easier than the 1st which probably doesn't help.

It certainly seems like it. My group is in the same boat as yours. 10/12 atm, and from what I hear and what I've seen on Wowprogress Consorts is a joke fight. (Most guilds have them dead within 30 minutes to an hour after Qon.)

Horridon was VERY tightly tuned on release, and we spent two days there. Got council in 5 pulls after that. Megaera is the big block after that, with Ji'Kun, Durumu, and Primordius being pretty much gimmes. Dark Animus was a pain, just because of the new style of mechanic and people not knowing how to act/react. Little mistakes on that fight mean a quick wipe.

I actually like that we weren't able to just power through normal modes this time. It gives me hope that the Heroics will be challenging as well.

Winkle wrote:I actually like that we weren't able to just power through normal modes this time. It gives me hope that the Heroics will be challenging as well.

The question is whether you/me, other hc raiders from last tier, are the target audience for normals. I'd say no, and thus if we find it challenging other guilds find it impossible.

Heroic modes challenging? They look freaking impossible. Even top 100 guilds are struggling against even the first few hc modes, these are the guilds that farmed 16/16hc. My guild is discussing farming normal for a few weeks for gear just because hc's look like they're going to hurt and we're effectively behind in i-lvl.

The thing is, the model of Wotlk/Cata is gone. The model we were used to in the last 4 years has been new tier = facerollable normal, completely skip previous tiers.

Now they are back to a vanilla/tbc model, where they expect you to be fully decked in at least T14 normal gear in order to be able to attempt T15 normals. And they expect you to be (bar top notch guilds) fully decked in T15 normal gear before having a chance at heroic T15.

Remember, now LFR is aimed at "casuals + baddies", normal at proper raiders, heroic at the elitè. LFR is also what you use to "catch up", but remember that the droprate is low, thus might require several runs of LFR in order to have enough gear to completely skip T14.

theckhd wrote:Fuck no, we've seen what you do to guilds. Just imagine what you could do to an entire country. Just visiting the US might be enough to make the southern states try to secede again.

halabar wrote:Noo.. you don't realize the problem. Worldie was to negative guild breaking energy like Bolvar is to the Scourge. If Worldie is removed, than someone must pick up that mantle, otherwise that negative guild breaking energy will run rampant, destroying all the servers.

Winkle wrote:I actually like that we weren't able to just power through normal modes this time. It gives me hope that the Heroics will be challenging as well.

The question is whether you/me, other hc raiders from last tier, are the target audience for normals. I'd say no, and thus if we find it challenging other guilds find it impossible.

Heroic modes challenging? They look freaking impossible. Even top 100 guilds are struggling against even the first few hc modes, these are the guilds that farmed 16/16hc. My guild is discussing farming normal for a few weeks for gear just because hc's look like they're going to hurt and we're effectively behind in i-lvl.

Nothing is impossible. My favorite quote is from Bruce Lee: "There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." In that same train of thought, I never expect perfection from my raiders but I do expect better.

Now, I don't think Hard Mode guilds from last tier are the target audience for the normals. Normals are going down so quickly. (I'm not being snarky or anything, these normal modes are going down pretty quick by any normal standards.) They already nerfed Horridon, Council and Megaera to make them friendlier. Some people have this idea in their heads that you *need* a certain ilevel of gear that the fight was tuned for, but being 5 or 10 ilevels away isn't the end of the world and the fight is still very much doable, but you're relying more on skill at that point. This is the first time in a while that normal modes have made learning the mechanics really punishing. They set the tone with the trash, as well - this is not a gimme, they are creating beefier content so it can last longer; but they expect you to be able to pull your weight. This is a *good* thing.

I'm going to assume you're in the same boat my guild and I are in, judging from your posts in the raiding forum. We're not in some bleeding edge hard mode end game raiding guilds, but our teams are still rocking through the new content.

My team raids 9 hours a week across 3 days (12 for the first 6 weeks of a new tier) and more of that time than I am comfortable admitting is spent on just BSing with each other and making inappropriate jokes about genitalia. Last tier we finished at a US rank of 2248 with 10/16H down. We do really well, but we could do exceptionally well if we spent less time goofing off. We won't, though. That's our charm. And this new normal mode content isn't that hard, we just tend to derp a lot. (If we had interrupted better on Horridon, and held off tank swaps until rampage on Megaera those would have been MUCH earlier kills and be 12/12 already, instead of *fingers crossed* tonight.)

You might need to micromanage your team a little (something I detest because it leads to burnout, but still have to do from time to time) or motivate people to do better and research how to improve. There is much more focus on the individual player in 10-mans now than there was in the past for normal modes. One thing I tell my team is that there is NO shame in asking for help, and I always recommend class forums or MMO-C with logs for improvement. And that's the big catch for this tier ... people have to know their stuff, they can't just run through Normals like an LFR - arms a-flailin', thick globules of saliva trailing in the wind behind them while echoes of baritone chortles resound through the raid instance. Where we used to be able to pull in Non-Raiders and Casuals for normal modes in the past we can't really do that now.

I can see these normals being done in a mix of LFR/Normal raid gear, if not full LFR gear from the last tier. People tend to look down on the TBC/Vanilla models because so many of their raids were bland, but I feel like this is taking some of the best parts of those raiding days and mixing them with Ulduar, and that thought makes me tingly in my happy places.

I really hope this model of content is what Blizzard uses going forward.

Sagara wrote:I am not *that* surprised at those numbers. T14 was pretty brutal, especially compared to T12/T13, and T15 really followed that trend.

Watcher's assessment of T14 was that it had brutal DPS checks that proved incredibly hard to overcome for a significant portion of the raiding population. Their plan for T15 was to focus more on executing mechanics properly with a ramp up in DPS requirements as you went along to what the feel is one of the best fights they've ever made.

Before 5.2 we were stuck on the second HoF boss, couldn't reliably keep enough people alive during the runs. We got Jin down in about 10 pulls once the healers had the heal pattern click for them.

We live in a society where people born on third base constantly try to steal second, yet we expect people born with two strikes against them to hit a homerun on the first pitch.

Bellanka wrote:Now, I don't think Hard Mode guilds from last tier are the target audience for the normals. Normals are going down so quickly. (I'm not being snarky or anything, these normal modes are going down pretty quick by any normal standards.)

I'm going to assume you're in the same boat my guild and I are in, judging from your posts in the raiding forum. We're not in some bleeding edge hard mode end game raiding guilds, but our teams are still rocking through the new content.

Where we used to be able to pull in Non-Raiders and Casuals for normal modes in the past we can't really do that now.

I think the issue here, as usual, is defining where that casual/raider line lays. For my new raid team, which would be called a casual raid team, T15 is going to be terribly hard. Many of the raiders do have limited time/skill, and you just don't get that full dedication you would from a 1-5000 ranked guild.

Is this a bad thing?.. No, provided that LFR will give enough of a "catch up" to eventually allow some progress.

But it will be rough for some guilds and raid teams. There will be a change as walls get hit, and what I fear the most, that the better raiders start shuffling up the raid team food chain again, like we saw in BC.

Amirya wrote:... because everyone needs a Catagonskin rug.

twinkfist wrote:i feel bad for the Mogu...having to deal with alcoholic bears.

this new tier look horrible from a "casual average" point of viewfirst boss was downed under an hour while the next one look like a very big step - same feeling as in HoF when we met the stopper Garalontalked with a friend 7/12 : progression path seems totaly bullshit... which gave me some more demotivation

comapred with Cata tiers... all raids were quite well designed in the difficulty progression and it was fine for us

regarding what beeing written : please... do not consider LFR as a raid option.... LFR is pure garbage. i know my raid is no more able to run for HM (even if half the roster did it in the past and our "skill" is still better than previous expension) we don't have time to study&improve every detail, we just look for serious funso, if we are no more the audience for Normal mode, and asked to go in LFR, it will be consider as a very durty offense.... (hm for the top 1% player, then normal for the next 5%??? ... leaving 90% in the same LFR boat??? com'on)

What's your raid's average ilevel? If the majority of your dps don't have 496 weapons and average ilevel of 490 you will really struggle to meet the numbers requirements, of which there are many, both explicit (hard enrages) and implicit (killing a particular add quick enough that bad things don't start to snowball). If that is the case you will probably get good returns from continuing to down Jin'Rohk and running t14 content a bit to fill the gaps. If that's not the case, and you farmed tier 14 normal and some heroic for a while, then you should not have any issues with the dps checks in normal modes, so it just comes down to tactics.

Regardless of what anyone says, gear is a huge factor in fight difficulty. The massive leap in ilevel between t14 and t15 highlights this even more, so I'd really recommend trying to get the most out of t14 normal content if you're struggling with the numbers checks of t15 if your dps are running around with t14 lfr weapons and trinkets still.

This thread has quickly devolved into either helping me and my guild through heroics or trying to offer advice for those struggling on Horridion.

Really i didn't write the OP to address either. What i was really trying to gauge was people's opinion on the tier and whether people agreed with me that Blizzard seem to have neglected a large portion of their raiding playerbase by having this huge gap between LFR (in which no guild/prior player coordination) is required and normal modes which seem to offer a challenge for the top 2k guilds let alone the top 20k guilds.

Back OT, I'm torn on this - I feel like this raid is thougher than what I'm used to. Still, 15k guilds have killed Jin'Rok, and 8k killed Horrindon after two weeks. So, around 8% and 17% progression in the raid. Based on the 40k or so guild that downed Stone Guard, I don't think (no proofs, no guarantee) that progression is that much slower than, say, Firelands or ICC.

When that day comes, seek all the light and wonder of this world, and fight.

I think normal modes are WAY over the top in MoP. LFR is ok and all, but it's just really, really terrible compared to raiding with a couple of friends. But these normal raids are way overtuned for grabbing just a few random guys that haven't done any raiding and go have some fun.

I'm not really sure what Blizzard wants to accomplish with the current difficulty. Personally with the LFR stuff I expected something like this as target audience:

LFR: Non-organized raiding. Meaning you don't want to commit to any sort of schedule at all and just fool around. Players that focus on PvP but want 1-2 pve drops. Alts.

Normal: Somewhat organized raiding. Guilds that have 1-2 fixed days per week should clear this fairly easily, at least the first 75% of the instance. Content should be doable by decent pick up groups without having a proper setup or a good communication/organisation.

heroic: Organized raiding, 5+ hours per week. People care about knowing details of their class/role, prepare for raids and so on. Ideally this should be tuned (or gradually nerfed, see Dragon Soul) so that guilds that raid two evenings per week can be done with heroics before the next patch hits.

That's roughly how it worked out in DS and that's kinda how I expected it to move forward. But in reality the normal difficult got pushed into the area of what I perceived as 'heroic' difficulty this time. Trade chat pick up groups geared with the previous tier normal loot and this tier LFR have pretty much no chance to get anything done at all (and no, a group filled with alts of people that raid very seriously on their mains is not a PUG in this meaning of the word).

Just feels to me like making non-LFR raiding more accessible would be much better. Can still let the casual groups/pugs wipe on the last 2-3 bosses if you want. But have brickwalls as the 3rd and 5th boss is unnecessairy. And I don't see a non-organized group killing Durumu any time soon.

I dunno, it doesn't feel to me all that much harder than previous tiers. Dragon Soul was too easy, but T14 and T15 don't seem far off what, say, Ulduar and T11 were like. There are a few bosses with difficult mechanics providing more of a block than usual, but outside those...

(Jin'rokh is the easiest thing since Morchok, but he's a bit of an outlier.)

Kai wrote:I think normal modes are WAY over the top in MoP. LFR is ok and all, but it's just really, really terrible compared to raiding with a couple of friends. But these normal raids are way overtuned for grabbing just a few random guys that haven't done any raiding and go have some fun.

I believe that what we are currently seeing is precisely the design intent based on the blues' comments. It seems more that you are one of the not-insignificant group of players that fall in between the LFR/Normal 'groups': you want a challenge, but don't have 10/25 folks to do it regularly and so the normal modes are a bit out of reach, and LFR is far too easy (and is not a closed group). Challenge modes don't really help since they don't really help gear progression (other ways to get VP and non-mog loot) and may not be of interest. At least now (T15) you can do the T14 normals, which still retain the mechanical challenges, even if gear and nerfs have made some of the requirements a bit more lax. You may end up with some upgrades too, depending on how lucky you've been in LFR.

If it weren't for finding a hodge-podge mixed raid group made up of players from guilds that fizzled last tier, I'd probably be in the same boat.